‘I’m a Christmas card… recycle me’

The former Changing Rooms designer and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here contestant is fronting this year’s joint campaign by the Woodland Trust and Recycle Now.

In January 2007, 93m cards were collected through the scheme and this year the organisers hope to boost the figure to 100m, allowing the Woodland Trust to plant about 24,000 new trees.

Companies and families will be able to take their cards to collection boxes in branches of WHSmith, Tesco, TK Maxx and Marks and Spencer throughout January, which will then be recycled into a range of everyday paper products such as tissue.

Ms Ryder Richardson told edie that her family tried to make small changes in their own lives to be more green, and she wanted to encourage others to do the same.

She said: “Apparently we will create an extra five bags of rubbish per household at Christmas.

“I, like everybody else, am feeling guilty about that so instead of sitting indoors feeling guilty about what we are doing to our world, the Woodland Trust and Recycle Now have made it very easy to do something about it.”

Susan Nisbet, a spokesperson for Recycle Now, said last year’s collections had saved an amount of carbon equivalent to taking 700 cars off the road, and if this year’s target was reached, it would be equivalent to about 800 cars.

The annual campaign was first launched by the Woodland Trust 11 years ago, before the organisation teamed up with Recycle Now four years ago to expand the scheme.

Alex Claydon, spokesperson for the Woodland Trust, told edie his organisation was confident of achieving its target despite the growing popularity of e-cards as an alternative to paper cards.

He said: “I think people do physically like to receive a card and that is something that’s not going to change.

“A lot of people will have sent them and we want people to put them in the collection bins that are in stores.”

Kate Martin